> card companies have been unfairly vilified in regards to stablecoins. both sides can extract value from each other. stables can use cards as a vehicle to instant global adoption and cards can use stables as a power converter to stay relevant. > stables are fluid not orthogonal. their utility isn't written in stone but can adjust to different contexts/geos. looking at them from a payments only angle is wrong. they offer access to USD, enable defi mullets, can redefine loyalty programs, transform treasury management operations.

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Things I have been thinking about: > I cannot see how AI agents will proliferate without strong verifiability & privacy. The Claude for Financial Services + GPT agent are in my eyes half-baked. > Companies should write their Culture statement in code/smart contract. Culture is the closest we have in Context Engineering. An agent operating inside Amazon vs an agents operating inside Netflix should not perform a task in the same way. These companies have different "operating models", culture and way of doing things. If not, then in the near future companies risk of losing any comparative advantage. > I am not into sports betting but if I were I'd be obsessively using Polymarket + Grok to find opportunities for easy money. This still seems to me an inefficient market that hasn't adjusted to the new reality. > Memory isn't retrieval. Memory is generation. As written before, the next big AI breakthrough will come from the field of cognitive science focusing on memory. > In my eyes, reinforcement learning=spaced repetition. If that's true, what other AI technique could inspire a new learning method for humans? > Blockchains and ZK are the most important political upgrade since the US constitution.

📚Currently reading Aristotle Onassis’ companies archives. Onassis was world’s richest man in the ‘60s and single handedly created the blueprint on how to run a global shipping company. He is mostly remembered as a bigger than life figure with a mythology around his name but it’s the first time someone deep dives on his entrepreneurial genius. (will write a blogpost when I finish reading it because his story is equally exciting with Rockefeller and Carnegie)

I have been positively surprised by Visa and Mastercard and how they have positioned in the stablecoin landscape. The expected move from incumbents of their size is to fight innovation via restrictive regulations but instead they have both endorsed the GENIUS Act and launched pilots merging the two worlds (like stablecoin-linked cards). My thesis is that Visa and Mastercard are not "evil" and they have an important role to play in the new payments stack. It will be different than the role they currently play but it will lead them to product experimentation, faster innovation and new business models. At the same time, Crypto has a lot to gain from them, first thing being an almost instant adoption from audiences that they don't (want to) know anything about blockchains.

The GENIUS Act is indeed genius. It’s the perfect policy mullet. Stablecoins in the front, dollarization of the global economy in the back. 🇺🇸💵🌎

🙏 I just want us to be amazing 🙏

My problem with Warren isn't that she is anti-crypto. I can understand why someone with her background and age operating in a specific political/ideological context would be anti-crypto. My problem is the intellectual shallowness of her arguments. Crypto does indeed pose some risks to the existing financial system but she hasn't even tried to build a strong argumentation based on research and critical thinking. She is just throwing a word salad with scary buzzwords. The worst thing is that this mindset is 99% of the political discourse in 🇺🇸 about pretty much everything.

Spent this morning talking with/about fintechs and neobanks in SE Europe. a) the pace of innovation and crypto adoption is extremely higher vs 🇺🇸 startups b) this adoption trend stems from necessity. the banks in this part of the world are extremely slow/sclerotic. Its a similar model when Africa leapfrogged the West with Mpesa. c) many SE European countries have big immigration populations from ME and African countries which are still financially tied to their motherland (remittances etc). Stablecoins are a better solution, simple as that d) e-wallets are widely adopted. It helps with easy payments for utilities and p2p money transfers. Sports betting is also very big in this part of the world with many betting platforms slowing turning into fintechs via BaaS e) for better or worse, MiCA provides the necessary clarity At @zksync we will be investing much more time and energy in Europe providing a full stack with the flexibility to adapt to the relevant needs (from stable issuance to launching a chain). (Big thanks to @endeavor_global in 🇬🇷for spearheading these efforts)